


a white sliver of moon in honey mead

by feralphoenix



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Altered Mental States, Awkward Sex, Bondage, Developing Friendships, Dom/sub Undertones, Don't copy to another site, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Gen, Kink Negotiation, Pegging, Politics, Pre-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Tentacles, Threesome - F/F/M, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:46:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27507811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/pseuds/feralphoenix
Summary: Herrah endeavors to get to know her fellow Dreamers by that most time-honored of methods: Dishing the Hot Gossip™.If said Hot Gossip™ largely hinges its comedy upon the Pale King's hubristic tendencies... well.Someoneneeds to point out when this particular emperor has no clothes.
Relationships: Herrah the Beast & Lurien the Watcher & Monomon the Teacher (Hollow Knight), Herrah the Beast/The Pale King (Hollow Knight), Herrah the Beast/The Pale King/White Lady (Hollow Knight)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 83





	1. apéritif

**Author's Note:**

> _(One of the most time consuming things is to have an enemy_ – but suddenly we discover a shade, a discreet lilt, a mark we couldn’t see.)
> 
> the herrah/tpk relationship is something i would define as "dubcon without an aggressor" because of the circumstances—all sex acts are duly negotiated, there's no acts of coercion, and the characters respect each other's boundaries as much as they can. but these are also people who absolutely would not be having sex if not for their political arrangement. herrah in particular has some complicated feelings about the situation bc even though she's the one who hinged her dreamerhood on these terms, it's a solution she proposed to end the infection while still preventing his blatant attempt to conquer deepnest/commit genocide against her people.
> 
> we'll be touching on those feelings in this fic from time to time, so heads up for anyone who clicked hoping for something purely funny, Here We Be Unpacking That.

“What _is_ it really like,” says Monomon, apropos of _absolutely_ nothing, “your arrangement with the King?”

The sheet of silk paper you’d brought to show her slips from between your suddenly limp claws to flop onto the floor in a puddle. On the other side of the room Lurien sputters. Monomon simply folds the tips of two tentacles together in front of her mask, as if in imitation of a bug winding their claws together, the picture of innocence.

_“Monomon,”_ Lurien says, rising to his feet. “You can’t—you can’t just _ask_ someone that.”

“Why on earth not?” Monomon says. “I’ve been curious for _such_ a long time and here I’m _finally_ presented with a chance to learn. It’s hardly as though I can pry answers out of His Majesty, he can be so prudish for someone married to the _White Lady_ of all creatures. Also I’m fairly sure this counts as gossip, which I’m made to believe is a time-honored bonding activity, and we _are_ supposed to be getting to know one another better.”

“That doesn’t mean you have free license to just _ask_ someone about—about their _dalliances,”_ Lurien insists, wringing his claws. To your great amusement, he drops his voice to a stage whisper on the last word. Here at last he turns to you. “My lady, I apologize for her,” he says, sounding genuinely distraught. “Please don’t think too poorly of her. Monomon has a tendency to let her passion for scientific inquiry overwhelm her grasp on social niceties, that’s all, she doesn’t mean to offend—”

You hold up a claw and he falls silent, still wringing away. “Just Herrah, _please._ For probably the fifth time. I know you Hallownest types like your formality, but even if I didn’t personally find it ostentatious I think our shared role in this great tragicomedy means that, by your own courtly rules, you’re allowed to use my name.”

Lurien doesn’t argue back, though he continues wringing at his wrists, skinny claws poking out from beneath his overlong cloak. You lower yourself onto three sets of your legs to pick up the paper you dropped, and give yourself a chance to breathe.

“Also I’m not offended—though, Monomon, if the wyrm is even half as free with his favors as the rumors say he is, I’d think you could learn everything you ever wanted to know about his sexual tendencies from the man himself.”

At this Lurien makes a little whining sound like a baby mosscreep and sits down again, whereas Monomon laughs.

“Goodness, I wouldn’t! I _couldn’t._ Herrah, my curiosity is _entirely_ intellectual. As a biologist I find the topic of sex endlessly fascinating, but as a personal activity to engage in?” Here she unlaces her tentacles and flaps them both like a bug shaking their wrists to get water off their claws. _“Yeuch.”_

It’s still early into your acquaintance—early enough you’re only just beginning to appreciate how long it’s going to take to learn to read your fellow future Dreamers, the Teacher and the Watcher. Your first impressions of them were of an academic utterly divorced from the reality of the world and of a fussy, toadying royal sycophant. Since then you’ve seen them enthusiastically discuss Hallownest’s internal politics, conceded to meeting in Lurien’s personal quarters when possible after witnessing him go to pieces in a crowd, and observed relief writ large upon both of them when you forgot yourself and spoke your mind about the _other_ half of the pale wyrm’s grand plan to end the plague.

So: You take a moment to consider. As Monomon herself said, this may be a good opportunity to learn more of your fellows by their reactions to any gossip you may share, and it will certainly get you into Monomon’s good graces to feed her a few choice tidbits. As for Lurien, he’s funny when he flusters, and you yourself have a mind to prod at how much of that fluster is cultural or personal shyness of sex versus how much has to do with the way he looks at his king like he’s a mosscreep doe on the verge of its first heat.

Also, Hallownest’s prim courtliness chafes like a motherfucker, and whenever you’re imposed upon to stray from Deepnest for long periods you _ache_ for real goddamned conversation. _So._

“Well! If that’s the case,” you say, grinning under your mask. You set the paper upon the uncluttered half of Lurien’s desk and smooth it out carefully before turning to face him and Monomon, folding your topmost set of arms and tilting your head invitingly. “My mouth to the trilobite shrine, your Pale King’s most bearable to deal with when he’s got one of his wife’s roots so far up his ass that all he can do is make squeaky noises and drool.” (Here Monomon lets out a giggle of scandalized delight and claps her tentacles, and Lurien lists against his telescope whilst making a sound like a distressed fungoon.) “You have my sympathies if you’re unlikely to discover this for yourself, and I think that merits the chance to learn some salient details secondhand. What do you want to know?”

Monomon curls all of her tentacles into tight little spirals near the edges of her bell, letting out the faint little squeal of an overexcited hatchling. _“Everything,”_ she says breathlessly.

This gives you a moment’s pause.

Maybe someday you and Monomon will be close enough you can tell her the true toll of this deal, the price you’ve only allowed Midwife to hear. About the mornings you’ve woken in your den and not wanted to leave your bed, about the postcoital moments you’re struck by a nigh overpowering urge to bite out the pale wyrm’s throat that has nothing to do with the base mating instincts of your species. About late nights returning home with your body still throbbing from some of the most exquisite sex you’ve had in your life, standing in your personal quarters with your head clanging, wondering what the fuck you’re doing; staggering to the nearest washroom to vomit.

This is hardly the first time in history that world leaders have stitched a ceasefire together with sex. You understand this, truly you do. It’s only that the knowledge can be difficult to reconcile with the Pale King of Hallownest’s generations of attempted genocide against your people.

You _chose_ this, you make sure to scold yourself when your heart and body attempt to rebel against you. Better to give the enemy your cunt than sovereignty over your people. Better to let yourself be bred like a concubine than to Dream heirless—better for the wyrm to do the siring than to hastily pick a partner of your own species, as it shall place a social disincentive upon any further attempts he might have made to wipe the Nest out after you’re gone. For as long as the mad god the pale wyrm’s angered cannot or will not confine herself to _only_ destroying Hallownest, this is the shrewdest tactic available to you and will accomplish the most good. Your people will grieve the sacrifice of your life, and privately you’ll suffer the sacrifice of your dignity, but you _will_ save your beloved country, and you will pay no higher a cost.

The part that makes you _furious_ against all your knowledge, all your resolve, is that the base animal of you fucking lights up with glee over getting to shatter the wyrm over your bended knee. Your insemination is a political necessity, and orgasm the sweet blood to coax you to swallow the bitter medicine. You should not find that man of all men attractive and it should not make you wet to contemplate how pathetic and helpless he allows you and his wife to make him during sex.

It does, unfortunately, make you wet. You do, unfortunately, find him attractive—despite centuries of war and genocide, despite his repugnant personality. Life has handed you the world’s most horrible little man with a sheet of silk reading BULLY ME stuck to his forehead, and he is as into it as you are, and for this you hate yourself more than a little.

Midwife’s heard you working through all this aloud, has comforted you about it—if a sharp but good-humored reminder to wring all the enjoyment from this affair that you can should really be called _comfort._ You have not spoken of it to anyone else. It is your problem. And besides, the more you dwell on it the more miserable you feel. So it’s best not to think upon it, if you can distract yourself.

When Monomon says she wants to know _everything,_ your uglier feelings—the grief and pain of your spiders—your bitterness and your conflicts are not included in the _everything_ she hopes to hear. She is a scientist; she wants to know the mechanics, perhaps some funny stories. Those you can part with easily enough.

“Herrah?” Monomon asks, leaning towards you, uncurling her tentacles to entwine them closer to her mask again in a much more buglike gesture. “Is something the matter?”

You’ve taken a moment too long to respond, you realize. “Ah, it’s merely that— _everything_ is a rather broad request, and I’m not sure where to start. Perhaps you could prompt me on something more specific?”

“Oh!! Of course, how silly of me, I’m sorry,” she says. You feel a little bit bad about this, but she turns to Lurien too swiftly for you to interject. “There anything _you_ want to know, Lu?”

_“Please leave me out of this conversation,”_ Lurien groans, draping himself dramatically over his telescope so he looks like a lump of fabric with a pair of little black feet sticking out. The overall effect is probably cuter than he would like.

“Oh, _be_ that way then,” Monomon mock-scoffs, setting the tips of her tentacles to the curve of her bell like claws planted upon the hips by a bug standing upon their hind legs only. “We all know how you _really_ feel. Then I’ll just ask what _I’m_ curious about. The White Lady is involved in matters now? Was that always a part of the arrangement, or did she join in later, and why?”

“She is, and she’s both happy to participate and generally a delight to work with,” you say, and seat yourself upon the rug, legs folded to either side of your abdomen. “But, no, she was not originally meant to be a part of the proceedings. Your king assures me that crossbreeding will be viable due to his nature as a Higher Being, but we discovered rather quickly we wouldn’t get very far without assistance.”

“Oh???” Monomon prompts, drifting closer. “Please do elaborate.”

“How much do you two know about my kind’s reproductive anatomy?”

_“It’s not as though it’s ever been any of my business,”_ Lurien cries from the other end of the room as Monomon says “A little! But tell me like I only know the extreme basics.”

“The inside of a spider’s epigyne is _very_ specific to species, though the outside might look the same,” you explain to them. “If you had much opportunity to see spiders barefaced, you’d be very much struck by the difference between native spiders’ and Weavers’ pedipalps. As I’m egg-bearing you wouldn’t be able to glean much from mine.”

“I’ve seen from diagrams how very curly some spiders’ are,” Monomon muses.

“Well, those match up about exactly with the inner canals. The tip of the pedipalp has to get all the way to the end to be able to deposit sperm where it needs to go for fertilization to happen. If it’s too short or the wrong shape…” You shrug. “This is what prevented me from bearing any children by my husband, when he was still with me. His palps simply were not the right size or shape for that to work.” Not that this prevented you from having plenty of enjoyable sex with some creativity and a toy or two, but the loneliness of your empty nest still left a few scars. It might have done your heart good if you’d had children to carry his blood, when you were still freshly bereaved.

“Oh… I’m sorry to hear that,” Monomon says, and she does sound it, so when you shake your head at her you do so with warmth.

“We were prepared for that when we married,” you tell her, which is true. “We made our peace with it. But you have my thanks for the condolences.

“Anyway, the pale wyrm and I ran into a variation upon the same problem. His cock’s well enough as far as cocks go, but it can’t get him anywhere _near_ my spermatheca, it’s built to deliver sperm across a much shorter distance.”

“Wait, cock singular?” Monomon interrupts. “I keep hearing all these rumors that he’s got two, is that an exaggeration after all?”

“That’s not totally wrong, it’s split near the base,” you say, holding up two digits on one claw to demonstrate. “There’s a bit past that that’s connected but if that part doesn’t make it out of the sheath it rather looks like there’s two.”

There’s another faint pathetic noise over from Lurien’s corner: “Isn’t that great to know, Lu?” Monomon says cheerfully in that direction, and he answers with a muffled “You are categorically the worst and I am _leaving”_ but stays put. Guilty curiosity or simply a matter of his anxiety amongst crowds? Possibly the former, since Lurien’s got his study and the broader downstairs of his quarters before he’d even have to leave his residence, and he seems comfortable enough around his servants.

“I’ll give you this too for free,” you say, speaking a little louder to make sure Lurien will catch every word, “but did you know the king refuses to call his equipment a cock or a dick like any normal person would.”

“He _what?”_ Monomon says, to all appearances delighted. “Then what _does_ he call it? Some sort of—of fancy epithet like something you’d read in a trashy novel?”

“Oh, no, it’s much worse than that,” you tell her, grinning. “It’s only ever his _hemipenis,_ like this is some sort of biology lecture. It’s nearly as unsexy as fancy epithets by itself, but his _attitude_ about it is so much worse. When I remarked on how terribly clinical his terminology is he just gave me this stupid little arch _look_ like anything else would be beneath his dignity.” Monomon is giggling now, so you shake your head theatrically. “Even his _wife_ just calls it a cock. The White Lady, who makes _no_ attempt to fit in amongst bugs like the wyrm! It would be funny were we not attempting to fuck.”

“He _is_ a very formal creature,” Lurien ventures from his hiding place with real warmth in his voice. “I can understand that.”

“To each their own,” you say, only roughly cutting off a laugh. If he’s so besotted even objectively wretched habits like this seem endearing to him, you ought to be thankful Lurien’s clearheaded enough to still identify his monarch’s plan of child sacrifice as cruel. In an undertone you say to Monomon, “When I return home I’m going to offer a libation mourning our dear Watcher’s taste in men.”

Monomon makes a low _blorp_ noise like a snort that bubbles into a low chortle. “He’s _so_ gone and he has been as long as I’ve known him, it’s downright tragic.”

“I can hear you both perfectly well,” Lurien grouches, and this time you can’t hold back your laughter.

_“Anyway,”_ you say once you’ve taken a few deep breaths, “just—just imagine this for yourselves. I’ve finally peeled the horrible little wyrm out of his robes, right, I’m already doubting how well this will work because he’s just so damn _small,_ I might not be too fussed if I accidentally crush him but that will make things exceedingly awkward for everyone so I’m trying to come up with some sort of position that will solve this problem. And here I get my first look at his cock and all that planning goes out of my head to be replaced with the single thought that this isn’t going to work, that thing’s just not long enough.

“I bring this up to him then and there, mind. He’s sworn an oath _and_ signed paperwork in triplicate, he is legally bound to sire me an heir, it seems like something he might like to be made aware of. But the little fool simply waves me off, swearing up and down that it shan’t be an issue and surely the main force of his ejaculation shall deliver his seed to its intended destination. This is his exact word choice,” you emphasize, gesturing broadly with both arms and two of the legs down your right side as well, claws clenched on the air. Monomon is already wheezing weakly with laughter, and in the faint pause you can hear Lurien whispering _wyrm preserve us_ sotto voce.

“I ask him if he’s _quite_ sure about that. I remind him of the length he thinks inertia alone is going to get his cum to cross, which by the way is not in a straight line either. He does not even pay attention—he’s already gone on to opine that the advantage of his _hemipenis,”_ and here you affect the breathy hiss of his voice as best you can, which makes Monomon shriek and even wins an abortive giggle from Lurien, “is that he can slot it into both sides of my cunt at once and ergo increase the chances of successful fertilization. And if you think this could not get any more hideous, he didn’t describe it as both sides of my cunt. He called it ‘both _copulatory ducts_ of your _epigyne’._ At this point I am dry as the desert wastes and considering throwing myself to the Old Light and having done with it.

“But we give it an honest go anyway and the saving grace of the tryst is that the care and handling instructions the White Lady gave me for her wyrm—mainly that he enjoys being on the receiving end of a little roughness—are accurate and enjoyable enough I don’t need to pause him and go procure some lube. Positioning’s as much of a shitshow as I expected it would be, but I’ve finally got him where he can damn well reach and I’m waiting for him to put his damn Geo where his mouth is in regards to all his bragging about his skill…

“And then he starts poking around my cunt with his horrible little needle claws. He _keeps_ doing this for almost a full minute. I’m _this_ close to picking him up by the scruff and pitching him across the room when he turns to me and says,” you take a breath so you can mimic his voice again, _“‘Herrah, where is your clitoris?’”_

_“Noooo,”_ Monomon hoots.

“And so I have to inform the Pale Dipshit Who Did Not Complete His Assigned Reading that spiders have not got those. Why would we!! We evolved palps instead of penises!!! It’s a very _good_ thing that he’ll be keeping his greedy claws off my people because Hallownest as it handles gender legally apparently _would not know what to do with us._ Never in my life had I seen a creature look so bewildered. If it weren’t for the circumstances it would have been incredibly enjoyable to me.”

While Monomon cackles and Lurien winces in embarrassment for his liege, you think back to the wyrm asking how he was meant to pleasure you in that case. The memory still sends a surge of messy, twisted emotions through your chest, and you’ve yet to fully unthread them. You hadn’t expected him to care about your physical comfort, or show any interest in you as an individual: All your life you and all of Deepnest were nothing but an obstacle to him, an unchecked item on a to-do list, a coveted prize. And now, suddenly, it seems you have become a person in his eyes—or as much a person as he perceives any of the creatures under his thrall to be. It is always difficult to tell these things, where the Pale King is concerned.

That first night you did not expect any consideration from him at all. That he would offer it so casually, as if such a thing is simply the norm—it’s a side to your enemy you don’t like to know. It’s easy to hate him for the fact that such absentminded generosity hinges on how he’s secured you as pawn for his war. But the generosity itself—your life would be easier if you could shut it from your mind.

But this is an aside you won’t be sharing with your compatriots so early. This is something you haven’t even told Midwife yet.

“It’s a credit to his skill, I suppose, that he was able to make me cum at all once I gave him some idea of _how,”_ is all you say out loud. Lurien makes another dying-animal noise. “But he loses a lot of those points again for how shocked and dismayed he was afterwards when I informed him his _main force_ got his cum less than a third of the way up my cunt.

“All of this could have been avoided if he’d just bothered to _listen_ when I told him it wouldn’t work,” you finish, claws spread wide. “But no, apparently it was the hour of hubris in his pale head, so my warnings went unheeded.”

“That’s _awful,”_ Monomon says with relish, clapping two tentacles and tugging at her cloak with the ends of the others. “So that’s when the White Lady got involved?”

“More or less yes, though there was a lot of debate between us on planning before we formally convened in the bedroom. The overall gist is that while the _king_ may not be able to reach all the way into my cunt, that’s not so for the queen. If I have them both at once she can help ferry the semen along. She’s a fertility spirit anyway, so her presence helps matters in more ways than one. And I certainly find her attitude more palatable than his.”

Truly, it’s such a relief in this prim and starched kingdom and its awful little king who treats sex like a puzzle and a mind game, to find some creature—even one as alien as the White Lady—who treats sex like a celebration, like play, loves it for the sheer joy of it. You’d alter the agreement to have a child with _her_ instead, if that were at all feasible. Alas.

“Roots, I take it?” Monomon says.

“Roots,” you say with a nod.

“Roots…?” Lurien ventures, apparently not quite grasping your meaning.

“You’ve seen the White Lady make appendages of them to suit her tasks, I’m sure,” you say. Cautiously Lurien nods his head. You gesture broadly. “Like so. A fat thick one for him. A nice pair of thin ones for me.”

Lurien drops his face into his claws and groans.

Monomon wipes delicately at the edges of her bell and sighs in merriment. “Are these… er, cross-species compatibility issues _very_ common, in the King’s bed?”

“Well, he isn’t the first non-spider I’ve ever fucked,” you say, “so I had a good idea of the main things to warn him about to prevent misunderstandings. Things like loud noises on my part being a warning that something’s wrong, where other creatures would likely be singing songs of pleasure. And the White Lady explained for me what sorts of wyrm traits her husband retains, as the man himself wouldn’t deign to, being much too proper for his own good.”

“It’s still incredible to me that a person with such a _reputation_ can be such a prude,” Monomon says, beginning to giggle again. “Even with how often he’s rebuffed my questions! I thought he’d at least be willing to talk to someone he plans to tumble.”

“He’s _shy,”_ Lurien opines from the corner, gone saccharine once more from sheer limerence. “It’s sweet.”

“It’s a headache if you ask me,” you say. “One wonders how much could have been avoided had Hallownest’s king simply been willing to have a conversation about his emotions or the plain facts of his physical meat, rather than blithely assuming everything shall slot into place for him and in practice enforcing that everyone has to fuck around and find out. I’m using the suggestive phrasing on purpose, but I _do_ mean in regards to international politics as well as his private affairs.”

Together all three of you sigh, all at once, in the same bitter regret at the current state of the whole crater. Something warm and gentle fills your chest to know Monomon and Lurien feel the same as you do, Hallownest creatures that they are.

“But, come, let’s not end this on a depressing note,” you say, grinning to them. “Just because cross-species mishaps are _fewer_ now the White Lady’s involved doesn’t mean they’ve ceased altogether. D’you want to hear the story about the time the Pale King got high?”

“The time—the time the Pale King got _what,”_ Lurien says faintly.

“Yes, yes, _absolutely_ I do,” Monomon says, lighting up immediately. “Oh, I can’t _wait_ to hear how _that_ happened.”


	2. pousse-café

“Ready?”

The White Lady of Hallownest’s voice is gentle on your ears as the finest Weaver-silk, steady even through your heavy breathing and her husband’s thin whining. Precum runs thick over your claws at how damned _calm_ she is even now, and you open yourself wider, nod, close your many eyes and rest your forehead to her front.

The tips of the pale wyrm’s cock skim your digits and your breath hitches as much from that as from the way he cries out beneath you, four little claws scrabbling for purchase against your abdomen. His voice raises half an octave and cracks as he slips in: Your chelicerae automatically curve into a smile at the sound and you shudder with the pleasant shock of his low body temperature against the heat of your cunt.

His lady arrows into you with a peaceful sigh, the coil of her roots bulging around the shafts of him and stretching you as she traces through your winding walls as easily as one navigating the road home. She’s wet with her own precum and everywhere she presses into you it sets off sparks through your nerves: Part of this is that the sweet nectar she emits is a natural aphrodisiac, simply her nature as an embodiment of sex and breeding. The greater part is the plain joy of being filled, of your very deepest sensitive spots being touched so expertly.

“Oh, my dears,” the white root croons, “you’re both so tight.”

The pale wyrm mewls into your belly. His cock tries to buck between your walls but his wife’s hold on him is too fast—probably for the best right now. You loose the claw you’ve been using to spread your lips and tuck that limb beneath the small of the king’s back instead, to grant him better range of movement while preventing him from slipping right out of you.

So badly you wish you could get a proper view of his face right now. You’re willing to bet it’s art incarnate, hazy and sloppy and helpless. You’ve sat and watched before while his wife fucks him, enjoyed the view while she held him all splayed out to show him to you. You know what you’d see, the dusky pink of the inner root she probably has all the way up his ass right now shining with the White Lady’s precum and the stretched-out ring of his asshole clutching on her girth while she pumps in and out all slow and smooth, the Pale King alternately limp in her makeshift arms and twisting to try to grip at her while the heads of his cock twitch and dribble precum, his own saliva dripping down his throat and chest. You can feel the queen’s movements through your grip on his back and the up-and-down tug of his cock in you, you can hear how wet his moans are and the slick sound of her fucking him. Memory and imagination can fill in the gaps. Neither compares to actually witnessing, though; shame you’d only hurt your neck and possibly pull him out if you tried to look.

You shift your claw against the wyrm’s back. He makes a low needy sound even at this, and you chuckle. “About to cum already? It hasn’t even been half a minute.”

He arches against your touch and the prick of his little claws sharpens, white-hot and stinging, probably drawing blood. “Silence,” he says. Tries to. It comes out garbled between what you’re guessing is a lot of spit and the low clicking noise he’s making in the depths of his chest. That usual stately whisper he affects is shattered into pieces on the floor.

His body tugs and jerks underneath yours, and he lets out a sudden sound that’s nearly a yelp. The movement _throbs_ all up through you and you breathe in slow. It’s not enough to get you off but you wouldn’t say no to more of it.

The culprit behind the king’s literal change in tune reveals herself with a mild hum. “She’s guest in our bed, remember,” says the white root, almost absentminded. “You’ll mind your manners, my beloved Wyrm.”

He makes a soft needy noise and shakes in your grasp. Her roots shift gently inside you to work around the heads of his cock and high up the shafts and he leaks cool precum all over you both. You tighten with an effort and they both react: The queen with a pleased sigh and the king nearly choking on a gasp.

“By all means,” you say, conversationally as you can while you’re so full of both of them. “Don’t let me deter you. It _is_ what you’re here for. But at least _try_ to earn your keep, will you, little wyrm?”

So saying you dig the tips of your claws in just slightly, testing against his carapace.

“We will—we will see,” he says muffled against your belly, sibilants a delightful mess and the rest of the syllables only threaded together by the most fragile of bravado, “we shall see how high and mighty you are once you’re so heavy with eggs you can barely move.”

“By all means get on that,” you say around a chuckle, flexing your claws so he gasps. “Or must I rely upon your lovely wife to milk you?”

He whines a little, and the White Lady laughs, earthy over delicate. “That may indeed be enjoyable to try at least once.”

“Oh, we’ll have to gag him to enjoy the full effect—and bind his hands too,” you tell her with a stab at glib. Both the wife and the husband will be able to feel your precum trailing over them and your walls clutching at them at the very idea of it, but you propose this absolutely as much because you’d love it as you do for the sake of the joke. The wyrm in particular is increasingly wet and twitching in your grasp anyway, which tells you all you need to know. “Completely silent, completely immobile. Like a little living dildo. I can just sit on his cock and you can just wring the cum out of him and we’ll enjoy him over tea or whatnot.”

He whines like a grub and leaks extravagantly, his pulse so eager he’s got to be on the verge of orgasm by now.

“Mmm,” says the queen. “In the right garments for it my Wyrm would look so very lovely indeed.”

“You don’t have weavers skilled enough to produce the kind of lace and bone I’m thinking of,” you say, grinning now. “I do. Give us his measurements and a fat enough commission and we’ll be able to truss him up like a doll.”

Now he snarls. “You go too far.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of doing this without your brain as on board as your cock seems to be,” you tell him. “Though I suspect it’s mostly a matter of how nicely your wife asks before your brain catches up. Or, if you’d like to avoid being tied up and muzzled at some later date, you could hurry up and get me gravid already.”

At this the pale wyrm’s claws hook again at your front in little stars of pain, but now he leans his weight upon his wife’s lap and uses his grip to thrust upwards into you. What his small size takes away from his capacity for physical force he makes up for with enthusiasm and experience fucking a much larger woman: The snap of his hips is sharp and he angles himself to drag the heads of his cock against your walls as hard as he can. The stimulus is much too shallow to be as satisfying as you crave, but it’s more than enough to cum from if you’re aroused enough.

He breaks first, gasping and crying at a volume easily loud enough to blot out your rasping breath. The White Lady murmurs gentle praise at him and her roots go from stroking you gently to _rippling,_ an iridescent sensation alien to anything any other partner you’ve had’s been able to provide. It sends chills up your back and floods your senses with shimmering scintillating pleasure. You bare your fangs in a smile and rock upon the pair of them as you cum.

About half an hour later, when everyone has more or less recovered and the wyrm has wiped himself fastidiously clean, you venture, “I can’t actually deliver the full set of bondage gear any time soon, it’ll need careful fittings to make sure you won’t be injured in any way, but I _can_ still tie you up anytime you like if you’re interested in trying that.”

Husband and wife perk up and swivel around to stare at you in motions so similar it is downright bizarre, between the difference in size and species.

“Elaborate, then,” says the wyrm, whose lofty manner and ghostly whisper won’t fool anyone when the tips of his cock are already beginning to peek from his sheath again.

“Oh, yes, dear Herrah,” says the root, her fathomless blue eyes shining. “Do tell us more.”

“I’m sure you’re both well aware that long ago in my kind’s prehistory we tended to eat whatever prey we could get our claws on, even each other,” you say with calculated casualness to prevent any kind of screed the wyrm might have about spider barbarity. “So it was necessary for us to evolve means to avoid that long enough to fuck, in the interest of our continued survival. And in the ages after we grew wise enough to control our appetites, _especially_ for those of us who live in large social groups, we came up with… other uses for those biological failsafes.

“My species in particular can produce a special kind of silk that’s only used in sex,” you go on, propping your head up with a foreclaw and freeing up the other to gesture. “We call it the _bridal veil.”_

At this the White Lady smiles. “My, but that’s a romantic moniker.”

“Well, it’s largely called that because of old tales where a nervous first-timer needs to be tied up by their partner to calm them enough for any sex to even be had, so exactly how _romantic_ that is might vary based on the values of the listener. Either way, the silk’s not of a quality you can truly weave or build or hunt with. I can really only use it to tie a bug up for a short time for our mutual entertainment.

“It _is_ meant to be used for sex only, so it’s ideal if you’d like to experiment with bondage. Perhaps even more so if you’d like to make a full outfit; better to know beforehand what will be most stimulating for you before you spend your Geo, no?”

“A wise enough proposal,” says the Pale King. “It does not escape my notice at all that you appeal to my enjoyment of _experimenting.”_

“I did not expect it would,” you say in as grave a tone you can manage through your broad smile, and deliberately do not gesture to his full erection, the tips of which have already begun to bead with precum.

“Very well,” he says, flicking his upper right wrist in the air. “There is still a significant amount of time left allotted to our current appointment. If we are to copulate again anyway we may as well perform some trial and error.”

You absolutely cannot wait to get to the point where you can gag the bastard settler, if for no other reason than because it will guarantee he stops using terms like _copulate_ in situations that are meant to be sexy. His wife, your usual avenue for seeking help when the little wyrm gets too damn unbearable, is not even any help to you here because she thinks her husband’s stilted language around sex is _cute._ Eurgh.

“How shall we do this, my dears?” the White Lady herself asks, folding her makeshift hands in her lap with interest.

“Perhaps you’d do best to hold him again, this time at least,” you suggest. “This silk _is_ sticky enough that we might use it to solve some of our positioning quandaries in the future, but I’d rather not leap directly into the deep end the very first time I tie someone up. Pale King, how much experience do _you_ have being tied?”

He freezes for a moment, wings unfolding from his back and spreading slightly as though he’s warning you away from the topic, then sighs and reaches one hand up to massage at his temple. “My lady has held me immobile on more than one occasion. I understand this is not exactly the same as being bound with inanimate material.”

“It’s not at all,” you agree, nodding. “The Lady can make fine adjustments to her grip for your comfort even before you’re pressed to speak. Silk can’t. I’m going to have to check in with you while I tie you to make sure no undue stress is placed on your joints or your carapace—recovering from _any_ sort of injury is going to set your entire plan off schedule and has the potential to leave you with permanent damage, if the injury is severe enough. So unless you can promise to be honest with me, I shan’t go forward with this.”

The Pale King is silent for another long moment, but his wife says “dear” softly and again he sighs. “You have my word, Queen of the Beasts.”

You close your eyes for just a moment and breathe in. When you exhale you let the bubble of anger at the pejorative go. “Good. I suggest we start with something simple, and bind your claws in front of you so they can’t be used. I can improvise a harness around that.

“—Ah, and there is one other thing I should warn you of,” you say as it occurs to you. “This silk has strong chemical properties. Part of it’s just an aphrodisiac, and I know you’re used to those because of who you’re married to” (here the White Lady laughs modestly) “but the other component’s a drug with the same sort of mellowing effects as alcohol. Even in non-spiders, it’s fast-acting, absorbed through the carapace. Perhaps you’d rather start instead with just a little on the back of your claw or something, to see how it will affect you.”

“Herrah, there is no real need for that,” says the Pale King, repeating the small sweeping gesture. “As far as chemoreception goes I am far more heavily affected by pheromone or scent than baser drugs. It’s simply a relic of my former wyrmhood. I doubt that even the aphrodisiac elements shall truly have any effect unless they are as strong as my wife’s ambrosia, and I do not believe that to be possible. She is a god. You are a mortal.”

You shrug. “If you’re sure.”

“Yes,” he says. “Let us get on with it.”

So the White Lady bundles her small husband up on her lap, and beside her where she’s seated you discharge lengths of silk so you can tie him up. You go at least three times as slow as you would with an experienced partner, continually checking at each loop of silk with your own digits and then confirming with the Pale King that nothing is too tight.

It’s been about fifteen minutes, and you have his claws and arms bound together in pairs and then folded against his thorax, bound about his back, when you notice his replies to you are slower and less distinct.

First you look to his cock, which is still fully extended and dripping precum liberally; then you look to his face—and have to stop yourself from laughing aloud.

“Herrah?” the White Lady says.

_“Look_ at this little fool,” you say, pointing.

“Oh,” she says, voice trembling with amusement. “Oh dear.”

_“Who,”_ says the Pale King, scowling, “are you calling a ffffffffffool.”

The words come out of his mouth as mostly slush and whistle, too breathy behind a myriad of tiny horrid fangs. He’s squinting at you, and those absurd and mildly horrifying translucent third eyelids are extended over the liquid black of his eyes—and at different proportions between right and left, leaving him hilariously lopsided. Furthermore he’s draped limp as a larva across his wife’s roots, and his cock is flopped against his belly with the two shafts spread out, both visibly pulsing, the heads leaving two pearlescent white puddles of precum on his belly that threaten to converge.

“My dear,” says the White Lady, gently stroking the curve of his bare face with the tip of a root, “you are terribly inebriated.”

“Prrrrrrreposterous,” slurs the king. “I am no such thing. Herrah, I com, cccc, I order you to continue with the tying of the webstuffs.”

“Holy shit,” you remark.

“I have _never,”_ complains the Pale King, “underst-t-t-t-stood that rrrridiculous turn of phhhhrase, there is _nothing_ sanctified about _exxxx_ crement. Someone musssshhshssst make the room stop spinning, I say, I am your king and your _god.”_

“You’re neither of those things to _me,”_ you say, carefully severing the silk you’ve woven and unwrapping the Pale King’s limbs. “Moreover you’re entirely too high for me to agree to any further sex until I can hear from your own mouth, when you’re _sober,_ what your limits are when you’re drunk.”

“Mmmmmnnnnnnnn,” says the wyrm in response to this, and attempts to wriggle, which really just lists him from side to side in his wife’s grip. When your claws brush his carapace you can feel it vibrating, so he’s likely still making some rumbling noise at a pitch so low even you can’t perceive it.

“She’s very right, beloved,” the white root says. “Well I know how terribly we all should feel afterwards if any lines should be crossed.”

“Nnnnnnnnnrrrrrrrrrrr,” says the wyrm. His third eyelids are now extended almost fully over his eyes. But his wife pets him and he stops making fake-growling noises, instead lazily looping his body about her roots.

“If something as mild as a bridal veil does _this_ to him,” you say, only barely containing your laughter, “I should dearly enjoy seeing what he’s like with a shot of Gulka venom in his drink.”

“Oh, it’s quite terrible,” the White Lady tells you earnestly. “When we first learned it to be a delicacy in these lands he insisted upon trying it straight, the way larger bugs drink it. For the next several days he was terribly ill, and kept threatening from where he lay in bed that well he should like to ban it entirely for its potency.”

At this you finally lose control of yourself and cackle into your claws. “Did he never stop to think about the consequences of a drug that strong on someone _his size!_ With his temperament, I’m surprised Gulka venom’s still legal at all!”

The lady hums, still petting her tiny husband. Upon closer observation he has begun to snore softly, which explains his lack of reaction to your outburst. “By the end of the hangover it occurred to him that he might lose face if he were so overt, and instead within the nobility he instilled a trend to only take a very little in a less potent drink.”

“Fucking incredible,” you say, shaking your head, meaning the self-centeredness as much or more than the low tolerance.

“Quite the disaster it was, yes,” says the White Lady, and you are not fully sure she takes your meaning but this seems not to be the best moment to press the issue.

“Wyrm _preserve_ us,” says Lurien as you finish your tale. Monomon is too busy sniggering, flailing her tentacle tips in wild spirals, to make any more coherent comment.

“He’s self-reportedly _trying_ to do as much,” you retort with a grin, “even if he _must_ make a great fool of himself many times over in the process.”

Lurien groans at you.

For your part, you regard your fellow Dreamers with satisfaction. Over the course of your tale you were able to lure the Watcher from his hiding spot by the telescope, and here he is seated upon the floor with the rest of you; the Teacher has slid further and further away from mimicked bug-gestures to a language of wiggling and tentacle-lashing that feels much more honest—even if you haven’t a hope of personally deciphering it just yet.

“What,” Monomon forces out between wheezes, “what happened after that??”

“The fine details are pretty boring,” you say, “so I’ll summarize instead. The Pale King slept the rest of the night like a drunkard, and his wife was worried enough about monitoring him just in case that she wouldn’t have sex with me in the meantime—not that I pressed her on it after she declined. My assumption was that she must be genuinely worried if she should choose watching her husband sleep over fucking when it’s the latter she lives and breathes.”

“And how did the King react?”

“The wyrm,” you inform her with relish, “was _so_ embarrassed he didn’t bring bondage up again for _weeks,_ and is still pretending that none of that ever happened. Or at least he _tries_ to. I won’t let him, and the white root won’t either.” She probably cares more about making sure he’s responsible with drugs from now on instead of falling all over his own pride again than bullying him because it’s funny. The end result is still that you tag team him on the issue, though, so that’s more than fine with you.

“Was he alright?” Lurien asks, pained.

“He had a hangover, but aside from that he was fine,” you say. “And now we know the bridal veil is too intense for him, I haven’t used it since. There are plenty of non-chemical substances available to tie someone up with.”

Lurien huffs at this but otherwise does not comment.

“Stars above, that is _so much,”_ Monomon giggles. “It is just… so _incredibly_ much. It also explains a lot!”

“It certainly does,” says Lurien, though from his tone of voice his feelings on the subject are mixed. “There’s much more of a social culture around alcohol in the capital, especially the western district, but the nobler an area is the more drinking anything but a weak wine or such becomes considered uncouth, and then in the White Palace itself all but those wines are simply not done. I’ve always been grateful for that sort of culture; I’m not ashamed to admit I’m rather a lightweight myself. The lack of pressure to drink in the White Palace as compared to my city’s internal politics has always been a relief. But… hmm.”

On an impulse you reach out and gently set your foreclaw atop his. He startles a little but doesn’t pull away, so you leave it there.

“You’re really a good sort, aren’t you?”

“I—what?” Lurien stammers. “I—my lady, I am grateful for the compliment, but where is this coming from all of a sudden?”

“He is,” Monomon adds warmly, coiling one sea-green tentacle about Lurien’s shoulders. To this he raises a patient claw and uncoils her with great gentleness.

“Anyway, if either of you ever want to hear more stories about how ridiculous your wyrm can be behind closed doors, I’m happy to tell them,” you say.

Lurien makes frantic demurring noises, but Monomon says, “I’ll have to think about some new good questions for the next time we get together!” and you have the very distinct feeling he’ll stick around to listen to the bedroom gossip then too.

As she turns to gently poke at him for his flustered reaction, you tuck your limbs beneath your body and watch their interplay. The quiet patter of the rain against the spire windows is still an alien backdrop to this panoply compared to the more varied ambiance of Deepnest, but little as you think you’ll be staying here in the heart of Hallownest unless you’re with your fellows here, you suppose it’s not so bad.

No, you can see yourself getting used to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spider sex is absolutely goddamn wild. if the mentions you see in this fic intrigue you i recommend that you take a look at [this article](http://www.koryoswrites.com/nonfiction/spider-sex/) by author and animal biologist koryos, which is very entertaining as well as educational. (their article on [social spider colonies](http://www.koryoswrites.com/nonfiction/its-raining-spiders/) informs a whole lot of how i interpret deepnest, since those are what deepnest is modeled after!)


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